Fun Fun Fun on the Autobahn

 First, a couple photos of the Sacajawea Hotel in Three Forks:

Today's task:  on to Livingston.  Still unseasonably cold, but starting with calm wind.  

About halfway to Bozeman, something went bump on the road:  I was a couple hundred yards behind Susan when I heard, via our communicators, a bang and an expletive, followed by her quickly coming to a stop.  The brackets holding the pannier rack struts to the seat stays (the part of the frame going upward from the rear wheel to the seat tube) had broken, and the pannier had fallen backwards, shoving the fender into the tire.

After

Before

Because on account of reasons that's why, the chain stay is lower on the seat post than is typical.  Attaching the rack struts to the mounting points correspondingly positioned the rack closer to the seat.

So I fabbricobbled mounting points using clamps used to secure electrical conduit.  It turned out that, as is so often the case, there is an unfortunate gap between theory and practice:  the rack sometimes swayed, flexing the straps, which they disliked sufficiently to break well before New Hampshire.

Fortunately, a ten minute roadside repair, resorting to the original mounting points (the bolt ahead of the clamp) set things right.  The rack was right at the forward limit of acceptable, but the self-sustaining swaying was gone.

As not infrequently happens in the West, the only practical road between two points is the Interstate.  Most western states allow cycling on the shoulder on either specified stretches, or anywhere.  Montana is in the latter category.  We got to have six miles of fun fun fun on the Autobahn.

Twenty minutes of that was plenty, thanks. (Getting from Livingston to Big Timber needs 13 miles of it.)

After which we had some photo worthy scenery, 12 miles downhill, and a tailwind.

Fifty-seven miles far better than yesterday, mostly.  2493 more opportunities for something else to go bang.